Personal electronic computing or communications devices are often lost or stolen. Since proprietary information is routinely stored on such devices, the need to protect such proprietary or sensitive data and to recover such devices is self-evident.
Laptops, and increasingly other electronic devices such as cell phones, PDAs, smart phones (e.g. Blackberry™, iPhone™), memory sticks, personal media devices (e.g. iPod™), gaming devices, tablet computers, electronic books and personal computers, are often remotely tracked so that they can be recovered in the event of theft. Such tracking may be effected by sending location information to a remote storage site, an email server or a personal mobile electronic device.
After loss or theft, owners sometimes remotely trigger a device to emit a loud alarm, either to assist the owner to locate it, if lost, or to deter a thief from keeping it, if it has been stolen. As is the case with car alarms and house alarms, such an alarm may easily be ignored unless heard by the owner of the device.